The Hardest Part of Rally Is Obeying Your Co-Driver's Directions

How well do you listen to directions? And how much faith do you place in the person giving those directions?

These are two questions I've been seriously mulling since I signed up for a rally. The relationship between a driver and a co-driver is one of the most delicate and important in all of motorsport. It can take years to form a deep, abiding trust. Which has got me thinking: Can a relationship like that be forged in a month? Because my wellbeing rather depends on it.

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Taking place over three days in late April, the Oregon Trail Rally is part of the Rally America Championship, the series where David Higgins, Travis Pastrana, and Ken Block regularly compete. The Oregon rally has 18 stages around Portland, from narrow dirt paths in the woods around the Hood River to high-speed desert stages near Dufur City. When it comes to rally in America, this is the sideways-sliding, crest-jumping, real deal.

A rally driving team comprises the driver and the co-driver. The former is the wheelman and the latter is the brains of the operation. The co-driver has a set of pace notes that help prepare the driver for what is ahead. He or she reads those notes aloud as the driver propels the car as quickly as possible down the types of roads that were never intended to be driven fast.

Pace notes are supposed to clearly convey what's coming next. The direction and gradient of the next curve or turn, upcoming obstacles like crests or narrow bridges, and the approximate speed you might conceivably safely negotiate the road. The notes use the most precise and economical language to convey an incredible amount of detailed information.

The notes are often compiled by rally organizers, sometimes using a computer program called Jemba Inertia. Other times the rally team makes its own notes during the reconnaissance drive (or recce). In rallies like Oregon, competitors are allowed to drive each of the stages at slow speeds and add notes or alterations to provided notes as they see fit. For a rally vet, this all goes a long way to driving quickly and safely.

In the heat of a race, the notes come quick and relentlessly, a steady machine-gun patter.

I'm sure it will be helpful, but I'm no rally vet. In the heat of a race, the notes come quick and relentlessly, a steady machine-gun patter. And since I'm a man, my listening skills are weak from the get-go, a general failing of the Y chromosome. Further, I'm a Type A personality, sadly given to second-guessing anyone holding a map. The refrain most heard from my mouth: "Are you sure? Because I think . . . "

That type of nonsense can't hold if I have any hope of being competitive. I'll need to trade it for a total-faith type of listening that translates to instant action. A moment of inattention could mean turning right at the top of fourth gear when the co-driver actually instructed me to take a left under heavy braking—directly into a big oak tree.

Sounds like a potential disaster. But I have two elements working in my favor. The first is a hugely experienced co-driver who owns the car I'll be piloting and is invested in keeping me on the right path. The second is a shadow passenger who's taught me a lot about listening, repeatedly proving the stupidity of second-guessing a seasoned co-driver.

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That person is, clearly, my wife.

When we first met, a decade ago, I was hesitant to let Miranda consult a map. This led to incidents like us getting lost on hiking trails in Canada in deep snow and freezing temperatures (twice), ending up in Queens rather than uptown Manhattan on the subway, and a long list of shortcuts that were anything but. She threatened, I relented, and eventually deigned to let her take a peek at the map. She proved to be the best co-driver and navigator I've ever met. She bested me every single time. Give a map to Miranda and you'll arrive at your destination promptly and smartly.

Still, that doesn't mean I always listen. Even though I know better, that male sense of "I know best" rears its ugly head on occasion, and I'll boldly go where man has so often gone before—the wrong direction.

It is this instinct that I must fight when I'm driving flat out through the forest.

My co-driver in the race is a Minnesotan named Scott Putnam, who owns CPD Racing out of Minneapolis. We'll be running his 2013 model-year Subaru WRX in the Super Production Class. One might question Scott's sanity inviting me, but there's no question of his qualifications. He and his regular driver, Lauchlin O'Sullivan, count among the top privateers in the series, winning the Super Production class in 2012 and 2015 and taking second place overall last year, behind Higgins. Scott has been co-driving for more than 15 years.

He's a fun guy who loves Subarus and rallying, but has a measured and calm demeanor inside the car. He inspires confidence. I met him a dozen years ago, when he taught me the pace notes system for my first and only previous rally, the Lake Superior Performance Rally. Scott spent hours drilling me in the terminology, and the race, also in a Subaru, went very well.

I've since forgotten everything. So Scott, Lauchlin, and I met up recently in Wyoming to test the car—and re-learn notes. The three of us sat in a Holiday Inn outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and watched in-car videos of the two of them blitzing down dirt roads.

With the video muted, Scott read off the race pace notes as I tried to follow along. The language unraveled all too quickly, sounding like gobblygook, as the GoPro video showed Lauchlin, a former Mitsubishi factory driver who's been rallying since his teens, barrel through the woods and jump over cattle guards.

My hands started sweating.

If Miranda and I have been together for a decade, learning each other's ins and outs, so too have these two gentlemen. They've spent hundreds of hours together in the car, testing language and mettle, learning each others foibles and predilections and strengths. It was obvious that they had a deep relationship forged in the most fraught of moments.

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And so, too, will Scott and I begin our own communication. It will be a shotgun wedding, formed over a week or so in a speeding Subaru. Scott told me, gravely, "You have to remember not to do anything until I tell you to. Don't take off or move the car or anything. You're driving, but I'm in control."

Sure, I thought. I can do that . . . right?

Because I have great faith in his abilities. And, at least, a reasonable amount of faith in my own. But I gotta work on those notes.

Jason Harper, a contributing editor to Road & Track, has tested and written on cars for two decades. His scariest drive was a rally race in an original Lancia 037, his first drive of a supercar was the Porsche Carrera GT, and the only time he's gotten a speeding ticket was in a base Mini Cooper. His column, Harper's Bizarre, runs every Wednesday.

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